Painting Bought At Church Is Elusive 3rd Masterpiece

The Nation - In Brief

June 20, 2004

DUBLIN, N.H. -- The friends pooled their money and paid $3,200 for a painting at a church auction. Five months later, they put it up for sale at Sotheby's in New York. The winning bid: $489,600, more than 150 times what they paid. The 13-inch by 111/2-inch panel of the Madonna and child turned out to be the lost third of a 14th-century triptych painted by an unknown Sienese artist. It was donated to the church auction by Jessie Hale of Dublin, whose family had owned it for nearly 100 years.